


Long-distance backup

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alt-POV, Friendship, Gen, Sam Wilson is a mental heath professional, Sam has Steve's back, but Sam also has a life of his own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve finding Bucky happens in ways Sam finds less than optimal, and also Sam's Monday in general is just difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long-distance backup

**Author's Note:**

> This series is linked to my [your blue-eyed boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700/chapters/3595874) and [(even if i could) make a deal with god](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), and explores both Sam's pov of same and also other things Sam is doing in his own life. 
> 
> This fic takes place congruent to the first part of [your blue-eyed boys (1: someone's bound to get burned), chapter 1](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585).

It's amazing how fast life develops a pattern. 

Sam fudges the truth more than a little to set work up so that he can both take a regular week and disappear into who knows wherever, and also so that he's theoretically got more room to drop everything at the proverbial moment's notice, all without screwing over either colleagues or cases. Steve becomes a relative, random global hopping becomes a complicated story about supervision and support for custodial visits, and on top of it all his boss gives him the long look that says she seriously suspects he's lying to her, but she trusts him enough to accept that whatever it is, it's important, and that he'll come clean someday. 

Frankly, Sam hopes he can. Hell, if Steve ever does get anywhere on this frankly pretty hopeless quest, Laura Madden's just about Sam's first choice to turn to for advice _himself_. Especially if that _somewhere_ turns out to be what Sam thinks is honestly the most probable end. 

Which is eventually catching wind that someone's got a body with a cybernetic arm, with or without the catastrophic firefight first, and Steve fighting tooth and nail for the right to bury it. 

It's a pretty goddamn depressing thought and Sam doesn't like it. He prefers optimism. He actively _cultivates_ it, works pretty damn hard to. Always has. And he's not going to say a single damn thing to Steve, for reasons that range from "it's a waste of breath" through "honestly Steve already knows he just won't admit it" and stops over at Sam being pretty sure that if Steve decides you're not on-side over something, he can shut down and shut you out pretty goddamn quick. And then cover it up with self-deprecating charm. 

Sam's not worried he'd get fooled. He _is_ worried about Steve shutting him out. He's wondered since the Triskelion if he should warn someone about how close Steve is to some pretty fucking dangerous mental edges and snapping points, most of them having to do with finding _Steve's_ body somewhere. But wondering mostly brings home that as far as Steve Rogers goes, _Sam's_ basically the one to tell. Sam or maybe Natasha, but Sam has a solid inkling Natasha's kind of a mess, and she's definitely out of the country, and she only answers his texts erratically. 

And Steve doesn't _have_ anyone else. Not really. It's not hard to read between Steve's lines, get a sense of what he means despite not outright saying it, and if he's attached to the other Avengers, they're colleagues, not a lot more. How could they be? They're there, they're connected, they owe each other, but there's no depth. No comfort. One battle might make a combat team, shared loss might make comrades, but it takes a bit more to actually be friends. 

Sam's actually pretty fucking glad he and Steve've kept getting along, because the idea of abandoning anyone with this much shit on their plate and absolutely no one else in the world is pretty anathema to Sam's own fundamental nature _and_ sense of right and wrong, and sticking around would be fuck a lot more miserable if the camaraderie wore off. Sam'd still do it, he's done shit like that before, but it'd be a lot harder. 

(His mom used to have a little talk about love, and how love is an acting word, and the feeling doesn't mean much on its own: she used to say that the feeling was just God's way of making it a hell of a lot _easier_ to _act out_ your love, making it so when you're cleaning up your kid's puke or washing your spouse's clothes or helping your friend out of a jam, it's not a penance every step of the way. Sam's got some doubt about some of the fine details of this theory, but in the main, his mom had it completely damn right.) 

As it is, Sam's biggest concern is what'll happen to Steve, with Steve, if and as the search for the guy who was at least at one point his best friend goes on and on and doesn't go well, or if it ends in a corpse. 

If it ends in bloodshed Sam's not worried, mostly because to worry implies you've got some kind of uncertainty about the outcome, and Sam doesn't: if it comes down to a life-or-death fight, Steve's dead and Sam just kind of hopes he isn't dead too. There's a fascinating fucking case study here for someone with a lot more skill and thicker skin than Sam's got, but he _knows_ where that ends and if it's bad and - as far as he's concerned - unacceptable, it's . . . well. 

As a variable, it's a known. 

The others, Sam doesn't know. They might be just as fatal, because when you chase danger and combat the way Steve tends to when he's got nothing else to do, it's pretty easy to avoid the technicality of his own religious views on suicide. And even if it's not that bad, even if it's better than death . . . well there's room for a lot of _bad_ shit that still manages to be better than death, in this world. 

And it keeps hitting Sam that while he likes the guy, is pretty damn attached to him, might even be into the love that goes with really, truly being friends . . . he's still only _known_ him a couple months, and yet he's probably - bar a pretty fragile lady with eroding memory, and who knows when it'll be gone too far - closest to Steve in the whole damn world. 

 

There's also the question of what the hell to do if they _do_ find Barnes and it _doesn't_ all end in blood and death. At one point, more or less as an idle exercise, Sam tried to think of all the problems that could come up from that and had to stop and decide not to think about any of that again until he had to, because he got completely fucking overwhelmed in short order - international war-crimes charges being the _least_ of what he came up with. 

Madlen's in Haiti and Sam's not quite sanguine enough about international long distance and its security to want to talk to her about this over the phone anyway, but he almost doesn't need to: he can see her expression and her tilted head and hear the note that's half laughing at him and half sad for him in her saying _you and your oversized heart, Sam fucking Wilson._ She's been saying it to him since back before they'd even been engaged, never mind everything after, and he probably deserves it. She'd probably make some comment about billable hours, too, and when he got defensive or pointed out what _she_ did and how pots should be careful what they call kettles, she'd reply, _Yeah, but at least I_ know _what my time's worth even if I decide to donate it, Sam, you just throw it all over the place and never count cost._

And she'd be right. Again. Except that counting costs makes him petty and angry, tired and small, so he's not gonna start now.

He thinks about talking to Cara, and two years ago he might've - Cara's always been good at breaking the huge and overwhelming shape of a task down into bits and pieces, making the impossible manageable on the way. But just now Cara's kind of a wreck and probably needs more support herself than she'd even be willing to take _from_ Sam, so he doesn't feel good about leaning on her even a little. Raising a pre-teen's hard at the best of times; a pre-teen with a learning disorder, an attitude, and a dad who died when she was young enough she can turn him into a saint, that's even harder. 

It brings him back to wanting to talk to Laura, but he's not going to do that, yet. And hell, she probably doesn't know either. There's practicing out of your competency level, Sam thinks to himself, and then there's trying to plan for something that's out of _everybody's_ competency level. Which is stupid, so he should probably give it up. 

And he mostly does. And on the upside he sees a lot more of Europe, Western and Southern Asia, and South America than he's seen before, with about as good company as anyone could be in the circumstances. 

And mostly, Sam just waits. 

 

And then, of course, everything gets thrown sideways, because God thinks he's fucking funny or something. 

 

Sam's mostly asleep when his phone buzzes and spits out Steve's alert tone. Mostly asleep, mostly by accident, mostly on the couch. 

It'd been a long day after a short night - a night that had Cara calling him around ten to tentatively ask if she could unload. And of course he said _yes_ , and that took till about one in the morning and ended with Sam wheedling a promise out of her that she'll go back to seeing the therapist she found after Riley died, and ask about an adolescent-focused one for Corinne. 

Not that Sam finds Corinne's behaviour anywhere near as worrying as Cara did, because frankly most of it fell under "oh hey, it's Riley's kid", up to and including the righteous sulks _and_ the risk-taking (which isn't as bad as Cara seems to think), but it wouldn't do any harm. And if he's wrong and Cara's right, it'll help. Hopefully. 

Then today, work - not as hard or long as some days at work can be, but not the kind of great day you can point to as reminding you why you do what you do either. Then traffic being even worse than normal, then trying to figure out what was wrong with the hot water heater _again_ . . . 

After he'd nuked some of the frozen lasagna he'd made last week, sat in front of some old _Who's Line Is It Anyway_ , eaten it all and put the plate aside, he sort of accidentally fell mostly to sleep with the TV still flashing noise and light at him.

He's got a tiny clip of the old _Star Spangled Man With A Plan_ song tied to Steve's number, because he couldn't pass up the opportunity. Also because it's funny, because the better Sam gets to know him the more clear it is that Steve's plans last about one engagement at a time and leave an awful lot of room for improv. So when the vibrate makes the table rattle and some very Forties' women's voices start singing, Sam jerks awake and fumbles for his phone - not out of any real sense of urgency, more that he _is_ startled awake and kind of rueful about it. 

As he gets hold of the phone, he rubs his neck, reminding himself that sleeping on the couch at his age is a stupid thing to do and one that his spine's gonna punish him for later. He swipes the screen to see the message.

Then stares at it. 

After a few seconds he sits up and turns on the lamp on the table just to make sure that yeah, that's Steve's name and number, and yeah, what it's saying is, _he's here. he came here._

And then just in case Sam had any further doubts, the words _he just showed up at my house fifteen minutes ago. he's still here._ show up while he watches. He sees it, he gets it, he even believes it, and he still stares at it for a while longer because, well. 

Shit.

Actually just about all he can think is _well shit_ , so in the end that's what he sends back. Well, to be honest he's still kind of dragging himself out of half asleep and the normal daily world _and_ he's totally caught off guard, so what he really sends is _wel l hsit_ but he figures Steve gets the point. Then Sam tries to kick his head into gear. Sends, _Text or call?_

He gets back an immediate _don't call_ , which makes him frown. Almost makes him ask _why not_ , but he decides to skip it for now. Makes himself try to think _ahead_ so he's not just reacting half a beat slow. 

And fucking hell of _course_ it'd happen after a long day and a bad night. That's just how the world _works_.

Sam shakes his head, trying to shake it off and scowls at the words on the screen again. He shoots off a second text to Stark, who'd given Sam his - or at least, _a_ \- number the last time Sam'd been there, along with a knowing look that Sam hasn't quite figured out to his satisfaction yet. Texts him and asks him if Steve's told _him_ , seeing as how if this goes bad, Stark's pretty much the only one who can do anything about it. And he does seem to care. As far as Sam can tell. 

Then Sam takes a careful breath and types more carefully this time, _What exactly happened?_

And he thinks, _Coffee. Fuck, I need coffee._. 

He actually tries not to run on coffee. Sure, he's got a weakness for mochas, but he tries to make them decaf. He's not really comfortable with stimulants, even mild ones, and besides he gets the worst damn headaches from caffeine withdrawal. So he avoids coffee. 

Normally. 

But he keeps a kind of emergency supply for days when the world kind of attacks all at once and he figures this counts. Actually he figures this completely annihilates any other contenders for the title, possibly including the attack on the Triskelion because at least there he knew what he was _doing_. It might've been very-probably- _dying-bravely_ , but he knew. 

Because he also thinks, _Shit._ Shit. _Fuck._

One of the things about him being _with_ Steve on all that hunting is then, then in the end Sam'd be _there_. Actually, that was _the_ thing. And not because he's got any fucking delusions of being able to protect the man much. It's just - 

The thing is Sam _can_ imagine what he'd feel like, if you swapped him and Riley for Steve and Barnes. He's pretty good at imagining what things feel like. That's part of why he does what he does now. And it would be probably the worst fucking thing he can think of, would be Hell on Earth. Not even something you really want to _imagine_ , even for a few minutes. Sam can imagine how he'd feel, in Steve's shoes. 

But it's pretty goddamn obvious to _Sam_ that that's _not_ how Steve feels. Not even close to how Steve feels, doesn't describe the half of it. 

Sam's had the incredibly dubious fucking privilege of being close to someone whose kid went missing, and frankly, Sam knows two things: one, that's a misery he can't even imagine, and two, that's a hell of a lot closer to what's going on in Steve's head right now than any other comparison Sam can come up with. It's not exactly the same. Obviously. Barnes isn't Steve's kid. But trying to get closer gets to a really convoluted scenario, like "imagine if a seven year old who lost their parent magically turned into an adult but kept feeling the same way, like the orphaned seven year old instead of an orphaned adult . . . " 

Because there's something about the relationship that goes the other way, something about it that means Steve's not really the parent. Which basically means the comparison doesn't apply, but - 

But that's not the point. The point is, _that's_ the intensity Sam sees, that's the - it's the sense of being completely overwhelmed, the lack of proportion, lack of detachment, lack of anything but the tunnel vision and need, and so having Steve deal with finding Barnes on his own was not actually part of the plan. 

Having him deal with Barnes apparently tracking _him_ down . . .

Well, Sam thinks. 

Shit. 

Steve likes to type out his texts in blocks, sending a whole thought at once almost like an email, so Sam has time to find the emergency coffee at the back of the freezer, grind it, measure it out and pour water over the grinds in the french-press before he gets a reply, which is pretty terse and focused. 

_Came home he was standing outside. Told me he didn't remember me but he remembered remembering me. I asked him to come inside, he did, showed him the place and the spare room, he's in there now._

And really _well shit_ is _still_ all Sam's got, so it's what he types. This time, he spells it right. 

He pulls out some half-and-half he usually uses in tea, pushes down the pump for the french-press and pours himself some coffee, and when his text-screen still hasn't changed he scrubs his face with a hand and tries to pull his own thoughts together. Because this might not be the plan but it's _what's happening_ and it is officially time to be done with cursing at the universe for pulling this shit and to start dealing with it instead. And hopefully getting everyone out alive by the end of it. 

Because that's not a given. 

_well?_ he sends. _i can't read your mind, steve, you want help I need details. how is he. what's happened. do i need to get iron man on standby to save your ass. that kind of thing._

And now, finally, gets a text back from Stark. 

It says, _yup._

That's it. Just "yup". 

Sam starts kind of wishing he had some Baileys to put in the coffee, no matter how bad an idea that would be. And it would be a really bad idea. And actually damn now he wishes Madlen was not in fucking Haiti because he could really use someone to be losing _his_ shit at right now. 

_And?_ he replies to Stark and just about immediately gets back, _and what?_

At about the same time, Steve's window pops up with, _To start with, you will never need Stark on standby to save me._ Sam rolls his eyes and returns _never say never_ before switching back to Stark. 

And he does take a sort of a second to think about communication and how maybe a hundred years ago he'd be getting a telegram tomorrow and then rushing to a train to head to New York (assuming he had money to rush anywhere but let's not get bogged down in too many unpleasant historical details, here, Wilson, stick to the point), maybe fifty he'd be telephoning like crazy assuming he even knew about it by now since apparently Steve didn't think phones were a good idea. But now he's standing leaning on his kitchen counter bent over a five-by-two-inch display trying not to mess up his typing on a touch-screen while he has two different conversations at once. 

_Welcome to the future,_ he thinks. _I could use a fucking Federation starship and a transporter, stat. Throw in a fucking Betazoid while I'm at it._

_And_ , he sends to Stark, _if something goes wrong it's not like me or Natasha can make it to Brooklyn in time._

_nothing'll go wrong_ Stark replies, _it's fine._

Sam stares at that for a second. "You know," he says out loud, "I'm starting to see why Steve finds you so annoying, man." He pours himself another coffee and leaves that conversation for now, until he's got something other than _are you fucking stupid_ to say. Stark knows, that's pretty much as good as that one's going to get, consider it finished. 

Steve's screen says, _Second, give me a minute._

Sam sighs, pours himself another mug of coffee. 

Then he takes a long look at his coffee, grabs his extra-large mug Corinne made him in art class out of the cupboard, dumps the coffee in there, fills it the rest of the way up, and goes to sit in the living-room again because standing around being uncomfortable in the kitchen's just stupid. There's even more room to pace in the living-room, if he needs to. 

He's got more than enough time to settle in before he gets Steve's reply. When it comes, Sam can almost hear the reluctant sentences coming out of Steve's mouth. 

_Thin. And I mean underweight. Said all of three words, and I mean literally. No expression I could see. Has no stuff except what he's wearing and the weapons I'm pretty sure he's hiding in it._

Then, _No noticeable injuries,_ Steve goes on, obviously thinking in chunks this time. _Not filthy but likely been a couple days since last shower._

Then finally, _And this is me reaching so take it with a grain of salt but after he decided to come in I don't think he had any idea what should happen next at all. I mean none. No idea what would be behind the doors. No idea what I would do. Nothing._

Sam lets his cheeks puff out on the exhale. Well, it's not like there was any hope of much better. . 

Damn. Sam wishes he was there, and also wishes that every instinct he's got - and he's never actually gone wrong listening to his instincts about stuff like this, at least not yet - wasn't _screaming_ at him that calling in "emergency" and hopping on a plane is a _bad idea_. But they are. 

It even checks out when he thinks it through: the guy's there, everything Steve's saying so far says - _shouts_ \- bad stuff, it's not like Sam's got a fucking magic wand, so introducing an extra variable into a situation, something new that isn't there already, would be stupid. 

Too bad, Wilson, he thinks. You're an extra variable. 

He's about to start answering when a final text pops up. Reads: _Watched me like a bomb with a trigger you can't see._

"Oh great," Sam says out loud, "so you terrify him. Fantastic, Steve." 

He puts his face in his hands and then has a thought that makes him laugh out loud (admittedly kinda bleak laughter, but hey) so he types it as quick as he can: _well last time you ran into each other you did kind of decide to let him beat you to death, steve, and thats the kind of thing that might make someone think you're potentially irrational._

(Sam hasn't _entirely_ lost his sudden desire to strangle the man when he found out that part of the story. Okay fine, he's willing to grant Steve's conjecture that Barnes wouldn't've killed him, had stopped killing him, before the final breakup of Insight C and he's willing to accept Steve's absolute flat insistence that there's no way, other than Barnes getting him out, that he could possibly have ended up on the riverbank where they found him, if only because he's right: Sam spent quite a bit of time thinking about it from every angle, and there really isn't another possible explanation. 

But that still doesn't fucking make it _okay_.)

Typing it out and the number of typos he has to correct before he sends it is frustrating, so he adds, _damn this is gonna get annoying to text this much really fast_ , hoping Steve'll take the hint and, Sam doesn't know, go outside or something. But of course that's not to be, either. 

_Pretty certain his hearing's as good as mine now,_ Steve replies. _I can hear my neighbours' conversations in detail._

And if Sam remembers correctly, soundproofing was on the list of features when Steve was looking at the place. Damn. That did shoot that one out. Also: Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, neighbours. There were, what, little over a hundred other people in that complex? Part of Sam's been shrieking _police police call the police_ since before Stark blew him off, and that same part feels like the most irresponsible damn asshole ever, but, well - 

The guy walked through half of SHIELD. He damn near walked through _Steve_. Stark might be able to come up with something that'd hold the guy, but only maybe, he'd probably refuse, and you'd have to go through Steve to try it anyway. With all that, involving the police, or the army, or _anyone_ short of maybe some fucking Asgardians is just going to get _more_ people killed by making the guy freak out. And who the fuck knew what the Asgardians would do?

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. Well, at least the fact that doing what would normally be the responsible thing is _literally_ impossible means he doesn't have to worry about destroying a friendship. He'll look on the bright side and try not to think about the other one. 

He chews on the inside of his cheek for a minute, a bad habit he can never quite break. Once he's got his head together, he types, _ok you're right not good plan. talk tomorrow. right now BASICS some of which you should recognize: change = scary. change one thing people start looking for certainty other places. old places usually. familiar dynamics familiar surroundings familiar experiences. can get pretty extreme: theres convicts who get caught again on purpose b/c they only know how to live in prison and the change on the outside is too big. considering we dont know that much about his normal that doesnt let you predict anything except unlikely to be GOOD. so among other things let me tell you BE CAREFUL and damn it i mean of yourself._

He can't actually help appending that last bit to his big wall of text. It doesn't take long to realize that Steve's tendency to see himself as completely expendable in pursuit of a goal really is ground right into the bone, and that counts for injuries and misery as well as, you know, throwing his life away. 

The coffee's gone a bit cool and Sam gets up to nuke it. He listens to the hum of the microwave and watches the cup go around and around in a circle. 

What advice he can send feels uncomfortably thin and completely inadequate, but there's no real fucking precedent here. Who knows what having your memory actually erased does? Or being frozen? What kind of brain-damage there is there? And physical brain-damage matters, not to mention not knowing anything else, what was actually done, how they got the man to obey. 

Oh he can _guess_. He can think _well if the erasure works the same way as the memory shit you get from a head injury -_ and go from there, but it might not be like that, and you can only tell from watching. From the signs. There's a lot of options and Sam thinks he'll be able to help more later when he's got the first fucking idea what's actually going on, but right now . . . right now might be the most important time, and right now he feels pretty useless, at least all the way over here. 

After a bit, Steve sends, _I think his 'normal' means being watched. Always. ALWAYS. Being told what to do. For EVERYTHING. Probably suffering if it didn't get done._

"Only _probably_ , Steve?" Sam says, sardonic, and okay he probably'd have to bite his tongue on that one if he was actually sharing space with Steve right now. And to be fair, he doesn't know if that _probably_ is Steve being a bit fucking naive, or if it's Steve not wanting to lock that shit in where he has to think about it. 

Sam texts, _something tell you that?_ and then looks at his schedule, looks at the frozen lasagna in the freezer, and slides the tray into the fridge instead: boring supper for the week, but it looked like that kind of a week. 

Steve replies, _Hunch. Tell you tomorrow. Too long for text._

 

That's the last Sam gets for a while, but at zero thirty his phone rings instead. 

It's not Steve's ring. There are four people on Sam's cell-phone who have customized ring-tones, four people plus work: Madlen, Cara, Corinne and Steve. Everyone else gets the generic so far, by virtue of not being Sam's ex-fiancée, Riley's widow or orphan, or the quietly ticking timebomb of Sam's life. And this ring is the generic. 

Sam can't actually think who's calling him at half past goddamn midnight, so it's possible his _Hello?_ is a bit abrupt. What he gets back is a low, half-familiar female voice saying, "Sam. Natasha Romanoff." 

Sam says, "Oh," which he will remember for years as one of the more embarrassing moments of being caught off-balance in his life, but he does forgive himself on the basis basically of Holy Fucking Christ, This Day. He tries to recover with, "What time is it where you are?" 

"Oh-god-o'clock," she replies, and then drives right on with, "I'm assuming Steve's been in contact." 

And Sam feels like there's something a little bit . . . off in her voice, but it's not like he's got enough experience of her to have any idea what. He scrubs his face, looks down at the notes he's been scribbling since Steve's last text, and says, "Uh. Yeah," because apparently he gets to sound like an idiot now. He pinches the bridge of his nose. 

At work, this is the kind of feeling that gets him muttering _I don't get paid enough for this shit_ , usually to the sympathetic agreement of just about everybody in the building, including the janitor (who really, really doesn't), but Sam's not really okay with getting that kind of thought-process anywhere near friends, so he doesn't have any way to articulate how he feels right now, even inside his own head. But if it were work, he'd be saying he doesn't get paid enough for this. And _really meaning it_.

"Good," she says. "You need to pass me everything he tells you." 

While Sam blinks, runs those words over again, and tries to think of what to _say_ to that, she goes on, "You're not comfortable with that and I get it. But I am the only person even _halfway_ to being able to tell you what's going on in the Winter Soldier's head, I am our best bet for making sure Steve doesn't get his stubborn ass martyred like he clearly subconsciously wants so much, and anything he tells me directly is going to be defensive and edited accordingly, because I've already told him this probably isn't a good idea. Unless you have any arguments that actually refute what I just said," she finishes, "and believe me I'd be happy to hear you have a secret expert up your sleeve, let's skip that part. It's late for you and so late it's early for me, and neither of us will have any fun." 

Now Sam has a way to articulate what's going on inside his head. And that way is _oh fucking hell what have I got myself into?_

Not that he regrets it. Not that he wants to take it back. He's just saying, at this point it might be nice to really _know_ how far the rabbit-hole goes, and if he should be prepared for walking upside down all the time on the other end. 

"Sam?" Natasha prompts, and Sam realizes he's been standing there without saying anything for a bit longer than a normal conversational pause. He shakes himself, tries to get a handle on some kind of response. 

Like so often happens, at least when he's tired and off guard, his mouth cuts in with something almost pointless - in this case, remarking, "I don't think Steve's a fan of the nickname." 

Now Natasha's voice just sounds dry as hell as she says, "I'll find a new one just as soon as I have any indication what's at Steve's place is something _other_ than a timebomb with no countdown we can see," and Sam almost winces at the echo of his earlier thoughts. 

And when he still doesn't answer, she sighs. "Sam you're not going to be telling me anything I wouldn't be able to get out of him after picking apart every line of flannelling b-s he might try to spin me," she says, and sounds a little more like a normal person, although Sam still couldn't tell you what was actually off. "That just basically means I'll be picking at him and fighting with him every god-damn time I talk to him and that'll be on a weekly basis at least. _Or_ you can just pass on what he says to you, we skip that, and if he gets a stick up his ass about it later I will deal with it, and it will be fine." 

After a beat, while Sam still tries to wrestle his thoughts into some kind of order, she sighs again. "Look, Sam," she says, and _now_ she just sounds tired. "I know you don't know me that well - " 

"That's not actually the problem," Sam interrupts her. "I'm not really comfortable sharing without asking, no matter how good the reason is." 

"But you know exactly what it'll do if you ask," Natasha says, more or less finishing the thought. 

And damn it, she's not wrong: Steve - well, it's not like Steve doesn't know how crazy he looks about this, from the outside. It's written all over him every time he calls Sam up again, every time they start looking, every time a new lead happens - well, happened now, Sam supposes, considering - that he expects _this_ to be the time Sam starts arguing with him, tells him it's hopeless or pointless or even wrong. And to be honest, but for one thing, Sam _might_. 

He's just not stupid. He tried that once on the top of the dam and hit a wall of concrete and steel harder than the one he was standing on, and if anything that wall's gotten thicker and harder since, so he's not going to waste his time and risk Steve closing him out. And it's not like Sam wasn't standing there, either, when Natasha told Steve he didn't want to do this. Give Steve just the slightest excuse - 

"I still don't like it," he says. 

"I want to get to this time next year and have Steve still alive," Natasha replies. "You got a degree in showing people how to put themselves back together, I've spent my whole life learning how to take them apart, and between us we _might_ be able to figure out enough of what the fuck is going on inside the head of an unbelievably broken man that I get what I want." And then, like she's playing a last card, but like it's a card she'd rather cut off her hand than play, so that for the first time Sam hears a little bit of hesitation, she adds, "If I could be there, I wouldn't have to ask this. But I can't." 

In the background Sam hears a male voice say her name, and then the sound of her covering the mouth-piece and a muffled couple words Sam's pretty sure are Russian. 

But that's all kind of peripheral because actually he's listening to himself swear inside his head, because she's still not wrong. He's _seen_ the files she got Steve, the other stuff they've found, it's just - 

Sam chews on the side of his thumbnail, another bad habit, and then eventually says, "Fine. But I still don't like it, and the sooner you figure out a way I don't need to do this, the happier I'll be, and if it's too long, I'll sort it out myself, anyway." And somewhere out there in the Caribbean, he thinks with a purely internal sigh, Madlen just felt really damn smug - maybe even _on_ the topic of bending moral precepts to expediency - and had no idea why. 

There were reasons, after all, that they'd ended up having to admit there was no way in God's name they should actually get married. And love was never one of them. 

"Deal," Natasha says, and Sam thinks he can hear a faint smile, and then an exhale. "You can email me later," she adds. "He showed up on his own, the only thing he's likely to do tonight is bolt." 

"God, I hope not," Sam says, and he wishes he could say he's surprised by his own sudden vehemence, but he's _not_. If the guy bolts tonight, it'll leave Steve with all the same bullshit as before _plus_ his inner child wailing _what did I do wrong?_ and Sam both doesn't want him to have to go through that, and also doesn't want to have to figure out how to help him through it. 

One of the things that hit him, the middle of their first trip, is that history sort of glossed over the part where Captain America was - is - pretty damn _young_ , and the knowledge pops up in Sam's head every now and again. Like now. 

On the other end of the line, Natasha gives a short, almost strangled laugh and then says, "No, I'm sorry. That's not really funny." 

"Yeah, it is," Sam says, with his own sigh. "I'll send you what I know in the morning. My morning. Go . . .have breakfast or go back to sleep or something." 

Natasha just says, "Thank you, Sam," and then there's a click and Sam left with the feeling that that woman doesn't _say_ those words in that voice all that often. And part of that feeling comes from how _fast_ she hung up after she said them. 

Like she didn't want to hear his reaction to the thanks. 

Sam rubs his forehead, looks at the clock, weighs the likelihood of Steve having any more to say tonight and then swears under his breath. 

He goes to bed without bothering to brush his teeth. Just plugs in the phone and turns the volume up high. 

 

It rings later, kind of like he suspected it would. And kind of like he suspected it would be, it's a _while_ later, at about three-thirty. 

Sam's been sleeping lightly enough that he's going to be the crankiest motherfucker in the world at work tomorrow, constantly surfacing and glancing to make sure he hasn't slept through anything, but when the alert actually comes it's like a drill to the brain. 

_Thanks, adrenaline response,_ he thinks, _but we're good. You can stop now._ Not that it pays him the slightest damn attention. 

The text on the screen is, _I honestly have no idea how to do this_.

And Sam has to put the phone down for a second and get up and splash water on his face. 

Really cold water. 

And then lean his forehead on the bathroom door frame for a second or two. 

It's not Steve's fault. It's almost fucking guaranteed to just be honest admission, and there's no way he could know because Sam's never told him or anyone else, because even when you've gone through the therapy dance yourself there's still things you keep to yourself. And fuck, it's not even Steve's fault the echo's so strong, that Sam can just about figure if he'd been there to hear it said out loud, Steve'd probably sound just as lost and helpless as Cara did, looking at Corinne in her lap after Corinne cried herself to sleep and saying, _Sam, I don't know how to do this._

Hell. Sam's lucky this is the first time the scarred places inside _his_ head have been collateral damage, so far. All things considered it almost should be a lot fucking worse. 

The thought brings him back to the thing he'd been turning over before. About how this doesn't feel like best friends, or even like lovers (and Sam hasn't come out and _asked_ yet nor Steve said, but he's pretty sure they were, and fuck isn't _that_ a whole new can of worms now). Because Steve sounds like Cara, and Cara wasn't talking about not knowing how to live without _Riley_. She's a grown woman and she's always been whole, in and of herself: she knew how to do, knows, even if it hurts. 

No, when Cara said _I don't know how to do this_ , she meant how to raise Corinne by herself, how to be the only parent, how to nurse her daughter through losing a father and come out the other end okay, soothe all the bits that breaks open, clean up all the metaphorical blood. And that's different. There's things . . . there's stuff you give your kids, you owe them, that you don't owe any kind of partner, ever. Kids, and parents. There's stuff you do for them and it's normal, that with anyone else, any other kind of bond it's kind of self-destructive and sick. 

And that's not how this feels. It just feels almost like Cara and Corinne. 

Fuck, Steve's probably not the only one a bit fucking lost on how to do shit, right now. 

Sam pushes himself off the doorframe, let's his closed fist tap the other one once, a kind of symbolic blow, and then goes back to his bedside table to pick up his phone again. Doesn't linger over the words too long, just goes for honest-as-fuck.

_steve_ , he sends, _if there was an expert in HYDRA memory-erasure based trauma and deprogramming in ninety year old repeatedly frozen supersoldiers i’d already be giving you their number. hell i’d already have called them for you. NOBODY knows how to do this. congratulations: you're now a leader in the psychological field._

He hesitates over the last but tosses it in anyway; even if the edge of humour doesn't work for Steve now, it's probably going to be a sentiment that comes up a hell of a lot so Sam might as well get the idea in there now so he can touch on it later. He's not surprised when Steve doesn't answer, though. 

Eventually, Sam texts, _what are you doing now?_ because it's as good a verbal nudge as any. 

Steve replies, _Going to sleep._

And on the one hand the mental health professional in Sam says that's a damn good idea, and on the other hand some other, older instincts rebel pretty hard over the idea of Steve being _asleep_ , alone, with who he's got in his place right now. 

Sam struggles with that for a few seconds and then gives in and texts, _are you SURE you don’t want me to call stark? or natasha? or anybody else? just in case?_ and sticks a tongue-sticking-out emoji on the end of it in what's probably a totally vain attempt to imply he's kind of sort of joking, unless Steve does. He slides Natasha's name in there, too, just to remind Steve she exists. 

Sam's still not happy about agreeing to fill her in, but she's also still not wrong about what she said, so he doesn't mention anything else. 

Steve says, _I'll be fine_ , and Sam sighs and puts the phone down. 

He looks at his bed for a while, but right now his head's full of Cara, and Steve, and Riley, and other shit like that. So in the end he sighs, turns off the bedside lamp and goes to sit in the living room, playing the stupid relaxation CD that has the irritating habit of working, until he feels sleepy enough to try going back to bed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Long-distance Backup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4079959) by [echolalaphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolalaphile/pseuds/echolalaphile)




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